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Friday, October 12, 2012

Teachem - Another Way to Comment on Educational Videos

Teachem is a new service that is using the TED Ed model of creating lessons based on video. On Teachem teachers can build courses that are composed of a series of videos hosted on YouTube. Teachers can write questions and comments in "flashcards" that are tied to specific parts of each video and display next to each video. Students can take notes while watching the videos using the Teachem SmartNote system.

I created a sample course in Teachem. That was a straight-forward process of adding a video URL then typing out questions. When you create a Teachem course you can make it public or private. Public courses can be accessed by anyone that has address for your course. Public courses are supposed to be discoverable on Teachem, but I had trouble locating any courses that weren't created by me.

Applications for EducationTeachem isn't a revolutionary tool by any stretch of the imagination, it's basically another way to flip your classroom (read my concerns about flipped classrooms here). That said, Teachem it could be useful for organizing short review or introductory activities for your students.